Ning and email addresses

[terriadamson]

I have been using Nings for 3 years at the middle school level in US History classes. I am having a problem this year that I have never experienced in the past. My students are not allowed to access personal email accounts during the school day. Because I wanted our Nings to be private, I usually set up a generic email account through gmail. In the past I have been able to send the Ning invitations to this email account and customize it by adding a + sign. For example, I would send an invitation to John by using the email address [e-mail]. Each time I add the +student name, gmail sees it as a different email address. My problem is not with gmail, it's with Ning. Ning doesn't "like" this format when students are signing up any longer. It says it's not a valid email address or it's already been used. Can someone help me with this problem. I would appreciate any help you could give me! Thanks!