'Steam for Schools' is a free version of Steam for students, facilitates Portal 2-based lessons

'Steam for Schools' is a free version of Steam for students, facilitates Portal 2-based lessons:

"Steam for Schools" is Valve's next push into edutainment. This summer, educators can apply for beta inclusion in the program, which includes a "limited version of Steam" featuring Portal 2, the game's level editor, and its workshop for hosting and organizing user-created levels. This new version of Steam will be free for educators (in and out of beta), and will give educators administrator access - meaning that kids cannot share levels.

The Washington-based company intends on opening up that level of access in the future, but Valve's Leslie Redd told attendees of today's Games for Change festival that "children need that walled garden." In the future, Valve hopes to allow more openness.

Valve isn't receiving any outside funding or grants for the program. "Valve is a commercially successful company," Redd explained with a smile. Of course, facilitating a massive education program for free is pretty great public relations. Other publishers aren't involved just yet, but Redd said there've been some initial talks.

For more information, Valve's "Teach with Portals" website is now open and will expand in the coming months.

'Steam for Schools' is a free version of Steam for students, facilitates Portal 2-based lessons originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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