For those unfamiliar with it, http://bit.ly is a URL shortener it takes any web address and shortens it to just a few characters. Set up an account with it and you can customise the URLs it creates for you. That massively long web address to the pdf you want your students to look at becomes http://bit.ly/todayspdf. It also gives you stats on how many times your short link has been used.

Use it for:

  • Getting young children to the same web page with a minimum of typing and errors.
  • Tracking how many times that link on your VLE has been clicked.
  • Tracking how many people have actually clicked the link in the 'important and urgent' email you sent out.
  • Formatting horribly long website address into something memorable that others can write down in a meeting (if they must use pen and paper...).
  • ... And my favourite... Set up a blank google document, set it's sharing options to 'anyone with the link' choose 'can edit' and bit.ly the link into something memorable. Easy to use collaborative note taking without students/ colleagues even needing a google account.
  • The last point can be extended by putting the bit.ly to the document in the footer or header of the document itself with a 'latest version of this document available online here:'. Then anyone with a printed copy has an easy way to get to the latest version. Great way to mix print and online media.

It has to be one of my most

often used tools in teaching and in collaborative working.