creating accounts on websites that require e-mail address (when kids don't have them)

Sometimes you need to make accounts for students and those accounts need e-mail addresses.  The problem is that sometimes your kids are too young to have e-mail addresses.  I found out about this hack a few years ago, but I'm just remembering to share it now.  All you have to do is to add +1, +2, +3....to the end of your e-mail address.  Then it is like the students have an e-mail address, but all messages go to your e-mail address.

For example, if you were teacher@gmail.com, then you could use teacher+1@gmail.com, teacher+2@gmail.com, etc.  The site you are using sees this as a new e-mail address, but any e-mail sent to it goes to your e-mail address.

I know that this works on Google and believe that it works on Yahoo as well.  This is a workaround so there are no guarantees that it will work every time.

Have you had success with this?

This post also appears on my blog The Tech Savvy Science Teacher