Software!

August 18th, 2020


The School of Applied Technology provides students enrolled in ITM courses and ITM faculty subscriptions to free software each term.

Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching
The School of Applied Technology is a subscriber to Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching software under terms of the licensing agreement which permits academic use of this site by faculty and students. The files include most current Microsoft operating systems, servers, and application development tools, and include applications such as Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server, Access, Project, Visio, and Visual Studio. Our subscription does not include any Microsoft Office tools except Access (for Office, see below). You can download this Microsoft software from your Azure Dev Tools for Teaching account. Product keys for the software are provided at the time of download so we suggest that you save a copy of the page. To access our Microsoft webstore see https://azureforeducation.microsoft.com/devtools. You will need to register a Microsoft account using your hawk.iit.edu email account to make use of this site. Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching membership benefits information is at at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/education/institutions/dev-tools-for-teaching-faq/. This subscription also includes training tools from Pluralsight and WintellectNow (90 days free), learning tools for Azure, and a Microsoft Store account that will allow you to publish your apps on the Microsoft Store for free with a special student registration code. Current courses on the Pluralsight site that might serve as a good supplement for your classroom instruction include

  • Python: The Big Pictur
  • Python: Getting Started
  • Python Fundamentals
  • HTML Fundamentals
  • HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: The Big Picture
  • JavaScript: Getting Started
  • JavaScript Fundamentals

There are other courses that would help with Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, and C# as well.

File from Azure Dev Tools for Teaching may be in the form of ISO images for creating an installation CD or DVD; you can do this using installed CD burning software and help with this can also be found here. Operating system CDs or DVDs are normally in ISO form.

Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Office (Not not available through Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching.)
You can subscribe to Office 365 for Education at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office. For Illinois Tech students in the past, features in the Office 365 A3 level have been provided at no cost but also with no support. This level includes 5 desktop installations of Office. Office 365 and Microsoft Office are not available through our Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching account. An alternative is to use free and open-source LibreOffice; we recommend you download it with an installer at ninite.com.

Other Free Software!

  • VMware: Software available to students and faculty through the VMWare Academic Program can be downloaded through your ITM OnTheHub Software account managed by Kivuto Solutions. You can access this account at http://www.itm.iit.edu/software/webstore.html. This account should be available after the third week of class and will give you access to VMware products—for free—as well as a token allowing you to enroll in VMware eLearning Courses online. You are entitled to one free copy of each product, with licenses good for 1 year. We CANNOT authorize additional downloads (i.e. more than one license) of these products, but according to the site you can redownload the software as necessary. More importantly, license keys are issued to you on the Web page at the time of download, and we cannot get you additional or replacement keys, so we suggest that you save a copy of any keys issued to you on the site.
  • IBM Academic Initiative: As an IBM Academic Affiliate, IBM developer and analytics software is available to students and faculty. Go to https://ibm.biz/academic to register and access software and educational materials.
  • Oracle: The ITM Department is an Oracle Academy which makes Oracle software available to faculty and students. Contact the Oracle Academy manager for access to software: SAT Director of I.T. Louis McHugh, IIT Tower room 14C3-2 or lmchughi@iit.edu.
  • The Microsoft Garage is the home for experimental software from Microsoft’s research labs, not just for Windows, but a lot of Android apps as well. Many cool and interesting things. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/#garage-workbench
  • Free software from Autodesk including Autocad and Maya is available at http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/featured
  • Don’t forget all of our online applications available with your IIT Google Account, https://www.google.com/edu/higher-education/. Here’s some help – 32 Ways to Use Apps Edu for University Students: http://goo.gl/RnLDt
  • Ninite, at https://ninite.com/, allows you to select the best of free and open source software for Windows and creates a single installer which will install the correct version of the software for your system architecture—and not install any crapware that might accompany the software. For a good alternative to Microsoft Office, we suggest LibreOffice, available though Ninite.

Additional academically priced software can be purchased from OnTheHub’s main IIT web store, including software from SPSS, Norton, Nero, Cyberlink, and Corel. Note that Microsoft and VMware software on this main IIT page is probably available for free on our site, so check out our other free software resources first. Not an endorsement but an observation: OnTheHub’s prices on Corel software are probably the lowest we’ve seen anywhere.