The URL (Universal Resource Locator) is the address of a webpage, for example the URL for this site’s homepage is classroomtech.org.uk.

Not all websites or web pages have such snappy and easy to remember addresses. Try telling students (or expecting them to type) addresses like http://www.members.aol.com/ukhostmths/mathson/maths/shape/curve/curve1.htm or even worse random addresses like the ones you get for published documents from Google Docs, e.g. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgtxdb9p_0dcpmz8gq.

Obviously in a classroom these are difficult to communicate to students and can lead to problems with typing errors when students try to enter them. One solution is to use one of the many URL shortening services. These work by taking the original address you are interested in and generating a shorter address that is easier to remember and communicate. This short address permanently forwards to the original address, so once you have shortened one you don’t have to do it again and the new short address will take you straight to the site you want.

As I mentioned there are loads of these shortening services around the web. Unfortunately many of the these are blocked on school networks, but there should be some that are useable from schools.

Two of the best services that I have found are Memurl and DwarfURL. These are particularily good because they have simple, uncluttered web sites with only minimal adverts. Each as well as providing the basic URL shortening service, has some extras to offer.

Memurl aims to provide memorable URLs that can be pronounced easily so that you can tell someone the address and they should be able to use it without having to see it written down. For example the shortened address that memURL gave for this site is memurl.com/fodoli. MemURL also allows you to set whether you want your new link address to be public or private, although you can only set your preference for 60 seconds after the URL is generated.

DwarfURL also provides private or public links. Unlike memURL the address generated is not as easy to remember as it uses random letters and numbers. The shortened URL dwarfURL gave for this site was dwarfurl.com/80bd4b. DwarfURL’s distinctive feature is that you can enter a password that will then give you access to statistics about how often your shortened address is used.

Both these services have browser extensions that you can install in your web browser to allow you to shorten addresses from any webpage.

The website mashable.com has a list of 90 URL shortening services. Some of them have extra features such as allowing you to pick your own keyword, but many may be blocked from school networks.

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