Hello- we are a homeschooling family and I’m wondering, is there a way to get access to SketchUp as a student or an educator when we aren’t associated with a public school? We do have a Homeschool Charter school but SketchUp isn’t currently an approved vendor so I’d like to access it on my own for now. Thank you!
Hi @Tanicia, thanks for the post! We allow access to SketchUp for Schools to any and all educators that are serving a k-12 population. That means that as long as you are not a higher education school and work in education in some capacity, you can get access at no cost!
The only tricky part is deploying the app as it requires an environment that supports it. Specifically, you need a Google or Microsoft education account that has the ability to deploy apps for students associated with that domain. If you have one and can deploy the app then you are all set to go and I can link you to a video guide for your environment to get you up and running as quickly as possible! If you do not have one, then you can’t use SketchUp for Schools but are welcome to either use our free web app or purchase a highly discounted license for our education version via one of our reseller partners.
The curriculum we have developed for schools is completely free no matter what version you choose although there are some differences with the user interface if you choose to go with the pro version so keep that in mind as you decide what to do. Let me know how you want to proceed and I’ll link you to the right area of our site.
Hi Casey! Thank you for your reply! My homeschool charter said our computers are set up to run the Sketchup Desktop version. Is that something you can link me to? I’m not sure where to find it.
Also- When I have tried to access the school version in the past I believe it gave me trouble because I was using my personal email (as their parent). Would I need to try and access it from their school email address?
Thank you!!
If you indeed have access to the desktop version, that’s preferable in terms of features and capability. I taught with SketchUp Make for years (a desktop version no longer offered) and SketchUp for Schools Once. Both are OK for beginners, but the desktop version is not as limiting.
Ah, the desktop version is a little different than the school version we offer today. Do you happen to know what version of the desktop software you have access to or if you have access to an active subscription? I am, as always, happy to help you and other users find what they are looking for, but first I need to know what version you are looking for.
As for email access to the online school version, you would need to access it via the email address associated with the domain it is deployed from. If you are using a different domain then that won’t work.
@CaseyG We are also a homeschooling family in Kansas and I have a high schooler interested in using SketchUp for Schools. He is very savvy in both math and design. We do not have an educational account through Microsoft or Google, so the web-based software wouldn’t work in our situation. Would it be possible to apply for the grant to have the SketchUp Desktop version? Thank you for your time and consideration.
Hi @amerricka, thanks for the post. While we can’t grant access to SketchUp for Schools without the required Google or Microsoft account, we do offer the desktop version via our reseller partners at a heavy discount for educational users. If you are interested in that version you can find your reseller partner here: https://www.sketchup.com/en/resellers
The desktop version is my personal favorite version for the extra performance it offers and the ability to run extensions so I do recommend it quite a bit. If I recall correctly, you would want to talk to Creation Engine. Access to the desktop version was $55/year last time I looked at their site.
If that won’t work, I know some forum users may have the old version of SketchUp Make on their hard drives, but keep in mind that we have not offered support for that version for a number of years so it is a “use at your own risk” sort of solution.