Many Web 2.0 applications that I have my students use require a valid email for registration.  Often they can all just use one account that I’ve already set-up and validated.

However, sometimes sites don’t allow multiple users online at the same time on one account.  Also, if everyone has access to everybody’s work, it’s possible for a student who’s feeling mischievous to play around with another student’s project.  For these reasons, and others, at times it’s good for students to have individual accounts. 

I don’t necessarily want students to use their real email address for safety reasons, and I’ve posted before about several links that I have posted on the top of my Examples of Student Work page that allow people to create email addresses that last ten minutes or so.  These enable you to receive a request for validation and then click on it.

A new site, though, just came to my attention that may be the best solution so far to this problem.  MintEmail lets you create a temporary email account that lasts four hours and says it automatically validates requests for confirmation from most websites.

So when a student sets up his/her account at the site, they don’t even have to check back in with MintEmail to click and confirm their registration — MintEmail will do it on its own.

In addition to this great free service, you can also set it up so that all emails coming to your MintEmail address for the next three months are automatically forwarded to your regular email account.

It’s very accessible to English Language Learners.  Once you to to MintEmail, a unique email address is immediately generated on the page.  All students have to do is copy and paste the email address they see.

I’ve placed the link with the other temporary email links on the Examples of Student Work page.