Homeschooling in Canada- can we access Sketchup for schools?

Hello folks, I am a homeschool parent. My grade 7 student is interested in architecture and I am planning a unit study using sketchup. We are hoping to use the “schools” version to have access to scale drawings for printing etc. As a homeschool family, our school email account is a basic, not educator account. Is there any way for homeschooling families to access the “school” option?

Thanks so much

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Thanks for the post @dandelion! I am not actually sure about what our homeschool policy is. I’ll have to ask around and will get back to you as soon as I have an answer.

If you absolutely need to get started as soon as possible, you are welcome to use the free version as a stopgap. It does lack some features that the school version has, but it will get you up and running right faster.

If we can’t get you access to SketchUp for Schools, I’ll try and find an alternative solution that will get you access to what you need for your unit study. It most likely won’t be as elegant as a proper solution but I am dedicated to making sure that everyone gets access to what they need for their students.

Hi again @dandelion. I just had a chance to talk to Tori, and they said that we do indeed allow for homeschoolers to use SketchUp for Schools. However, you need to deploy the app the same way that a school district would. That means that you need a special sort of account that can access things in a very particular way. If you happen to have an organizational email address we can help get you set up with a little bit of work on our end but it may just be easier for you to grab an education license for the Pro version. If all you need is a single license and don’t need it for more than a year, you can get it for $55.

I am happy to do the work to help you get it set up and am not trying to sell you something you don’t want, but if you don’t already have the organizational email set up, it may end up being more effort than it is worth on your end and most homeschool teachers I know value their time quite a bit.

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Hello - sorry to add on to this post but it seems like this will be more efficient for everyone than re-asking the exact same question! We homeschool our 3 children in NY, USA and want to introduce SketchUp. Can I get more information on what “deploy the app the same way that a school district would” means? Thanks!

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Curious if anyone made headway with Sketchup for homeschool family.

Our kids (9, 13) are also very interested in learning all the amazing things they can do with Sketchup.

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You know, my son is homeschooled as well, and he begs me all the time to teach him how to use SketchUp. I’d be interested in hearing more as well.

Hi @scottw801, Hi @LinearGraphs, thanks for the posts.

As previously mentioned, you can indeed use the app, but deployment of the app requires a very specific type of account, just like a regular school district. If you already have one for your home school program I can get you added to our database without issue and am happy to do it. Just let me know what domain I need to allow and I’ll get right on it.

If you don’t have such an account for your home school program, which is usually the case with home school families I talk to, you will not be able to deploy the app and therefor will not be able to use it.

That does not mean you are out of luck though. We offer the full version of SketchUp at a heavily discounted rate for educational use. Last time I checked, it was $55 for a full year of access to it and while the UI is a little different, the functionality is all the same.

Again, I am not trying to sell you something you don’t need or want so if you happen to have everything you need, I am happy to add you to our database but most people find the $55 license to be a better option.

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Hello Casey,

Thank you for getting back to me! Like other families we are not official to the point of having a domain of any kind.

I am not opposed to going the ~$55 route however, what would I need to do to move that direction?

Thank you again for your help,
Scott W.

Hi @scottw801. Thanks for the post and sorry for the delay in my reply. While it has been some time since I went through the process as a user, I know the first step is to contact the reseller in your region and see what they need from you in order to process your order. If you are US based, the one to contact for educational licenses is Creation Engine.

If you are not US based, you can find your closest reseller here: SketchUp Partners | SketchUp

If you do end up going with an educational license, I also recommend looking into extensions after you are comfortable with your base skills. There are a lot of great user made enhancements you can use to really take your SketchUp skills to the next level and many of them are free too. My personal recommendation are the ones by fredo6 and Twilight Render. Last time I looked there are free versions of them too.

I wanted to take a minute to follow up on this thread to see whether or not any of Casey’s of suggestions were helpful to you as members of the homeschooling community.
In order to prevent misuse of our free educational products, SketchUp for Schools does require an organization specific email domain in order for us to help get you set up as a user, which essentially means that a general @gmail.com domain wouldn’t work. However, if your homeschooling organization provides students accounts, or a specific domain address we may be able to help you.

Even if not, SketchUp for Free is available to all users on the web, and we could also help you get set up with our significantly discounted higher education offerings if that is of more interest. Please let us know if you’re still interested in SketchUp, or if you’ve already gotten access!

I hope I’m not out of line resurrecting an older thread. Like others in the thread, we homeschool as well and our sons have shown an interest in learning more about Sketchup. How do we submit our domain information to qualify for the educational version of the program?

Thanks in advance
Brian