Many services that we all like have the option to sign-in with Facebook and Twitter profiles. While these options are convenient (people rarely forget their Facebook passwords) they have a couple of drawbacks. First, if your school blocks social media sites you’re out of luck. Second, Facebook’s and to some extent Twitter’s privacy settings seem to get more confusing by the day which means you could be sharing information you don’t really want to share.

Mozilla’s new Persona service might give students and teachers the convenience of a single sign-in service without the need for a social media account. Persona, launched yesterday, allows you to create a single account that you can use to register and log into multiple services. Right now the list of services using Persona is quite limited, but it has the potential to be the universal log-in service of choice for students and teachers.

Applications for Education
Universal sign-in services like Persona can be save you lots of time when you’re starting an online activity in your classroom. Instead of spending time creating new accounts, verifying accounts, and retrieving passwords that time can be spent on educational activities.