I’m with the tech department of our school district, and am a google admin for our domain. I had a teacher ask about using Sketchup for Schools on the chromebooks. As I look into it, I’m trying to find a difference between Sketchup for Schools and my.sketchup.com. They look the same to me. Plus, I don’t have to go distribute anything via the admin console if I just tell them to use my.sketchup.com. Am I missing something? Is there a reason they are different? Thanks!
Hi @sundermannc and welcome to the Forum!
The following quote was posted in an internal category for Sages and SU Team members in mid June of this year (2017). Note that the bold italics are my edit.
“my.sketchup.com and SketchUp for Schools are the same app, for now with the exception of Google Drive integration and few minor variations in screen appearance between the two. There may be future differences as schools want certain features, but we’ll try to let you know if there are.”
And this update on visual differences.
Left is EDU, right is My. It’s basically Drive instead of Connect, Model icon (since there are non-skp models in Connect), and Mike instead of Josh (the two face me characters).
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SketchUp for Schools uses Google’s GSuite for Edu to manage user accounts and to provide a place to store their models. By enabling SketchUp through Google’s GSuite Marketplace, you don’t have to recreate user accounts for students in a new system.
SketchUp for Schools allows students to launch SketchUp directly from Google Drive without needing to create a new account or log in separately. Models they create are stored in Drive along with all the other files documents they may create in Slides, Docs or Spreadsheets.
john
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Hello, I am in the process of deciding whether to continue with SketchUp Make or go with SketchUp for Schools. I like the idea of logging in with their Google accounts. However, I am a bit wary about the third party Google notification that says student data and contacts are available to Trimble. Am I mis-reading this? It seems that the students’ data (other than SketchUp files) and contacts should remain private to the student. I’d really appreciate your help with this. Thanks much!
@ccuratola, to help clarify our terms of service, SketchUp for Schools does not capture any personally identifiable information (PII) or registration data. As a G Suite for Education app, SketchUp for Schools also complies with all federal COPPA regulations.
For more details, we recommend reviewing the SketchUp for Schools terms of service, available at https://edu.sketchup.com/edutos.html7. As per Section 3.1, PII related to students is stored on Google and is not captured by the SketchUp for Schools app. Section 3.2 contains links to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which govern the collection and storage of student data.
Hope this helps!
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If I were in school I’d any day prefer Make since it support extensions. SketchUp without extensions is a bit like a smartphone without apps.
+1, and without connection
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Thanks for the feedback! I need student files to go to .stl files for 3d
Printing! Thank you for telling me about extensions.
Carmela
Unlike the SketchUp Make client application, SketchUp for Schools includes a built-in STL exporter. If you’re using SketchUp for Schools, you don’t need an extension to generate files for 3D printing.
john
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@eneroth3 Thanks for the feedback, Christina. What extensions do you feel SketchUp’s K-12 community needs most? We heard from K-12 teachers that 3D printing is necessary in the classroom, so we implemented .stl exporting directly into the SketchUp for Schools interface. We are open to integrating other functionality from our most used extensions if it’s important to the classroom workflow.
Just wanted to bring to light that one of the reasons we built SketchUp for Schools is because the majority of our EDU users said they are using Chromebooks, and therefore cannot install or access SketchUp Make. By integrating with G Suite for Education and Google Drive, we are providing millions of students with free access to SketchUp in their existing technology ecosystem. Further, we’ve added in-app curriculum to SketchUp for Schools to aid teachers and students in the 3D modeling learning process.
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Ok thanks. I’m thinking sketchup for schools is the introduction and then they move to make. Thoughts?
First: SketchUp for Schools ( this is fun )
Then:SketchUp Pro Educational license ( now, it is time to get hooked )
At Last : they’ll demand SketchUp pro in their profession…
note: these are my thoughts…
That sounds even better! This Forum is so helpful!!!
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I can’t speak for the K-12 community but in my experience extensions is probably the most useful part of SketchUp. Not any specific extension in particular but how you can control what features you have installed and how the program core isn’t flooded with an overwhelming volume of features.
The plugins I use on a more or less daily basis is Eneroth Swift Layer Visibility Control, Eneroth Visual Merge, CleanUp3, Eneroth Component Replacer, Selection Toys and Solid Inspector just to name a few. However I really don’t think any of these should be included in SketchUp itself because that would simply be overwhelming to new users and drastically increase the learning curve. You need to learn what components are before being exposed to a component replacer and learn how layers work before being exposed to such specific ways to alter their visibility.
@eneroth3 Thanks for your thoughts. SketchUp for Schools is a K-12 product and what schools and teachers asked for is the ability to 3D model on their Chromebooks. Coupled with rules around COPPA, unfortunately that means we cannot support extensions in the traditional SketchUp way at this time. We are sure there are schools that get value out of extensions (and we want to learn what extensions those are so we can provide them the best possible 3D modeling experience) but please keep in mind that the needs in the education community are different from your own or a professional workflow.
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the full suite of Solid Tools is very useful for beginners aiming at 3D printing…
john
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Well, out of the 10 years I’ve been using SketchUp only the last year has been professional use. Before that I’ve used it in architecture school a few years but mostly as a hobby. I also made a quite large SketchUp project in high school and used it a little back in elementary school in the art class. Still a good point though. If students are given very specific tasks I suppose they don’t need any other extensions than the teacher creating those tasks have (which could be zero). Students drawing more freely however could have the need for any extension there is.
When doing this I think it’s very important to keep in mind that much of SketchUp’s strength lies in its simplicity. Many programs can be overwhelming because of the amount of features, buttons and toolbars. I think the uncluttered first impression of SketchUp is a very important reasons why it has become so popular and among and helpful for kids on the autism spectrum. Some extensions wont at all add to the complexity, e.g. STL export which is just another option on the export screen. Other extensions can be quite confusing until you know the basics of SketchUp. Even something such as simple for an advanced user as a solid inspector might be distracting and lower the usability for someone who doesn’t yet know what a group is. The power of extensions lies much in how new concepts can be gradually introduces instead of all appearing at once which I also think is something teachers would appreciate.
That really makes sense and I’m glad the kids with Chromebooks can enjoy SketchUp too. However, if a school has proper computers I think it’d really benefit students to have the desktop version of the program.
lastly, I don’t know at what age kids are introduced to programming these days, but if that is relevant for K-12 kids I think SketchUp can be a really good place to start. You could write code that both creates geometry and reads data from existing geometry. You could introduce coordinate systems to the kids and teach geometry.
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