Steam For Schools Uses Portal 2 Level Builder As Fun Education Tool

Here's a crazy one, but yet, an awesome one. Steam, the online gaming portal that enables the digital downloading of titles far and wide, is moving into a new direction. And that direction is school. The very place where teachers generally would yell at students to stop gaming and start paying attention to their lessons. The newly announced Steam For Schools program enables teachers to use Portal 2's level builder to concoct their own lessons. Portal is obviously a thought-based game, mixing challenges and puzzels with more traditional gaming, and it's quite obvious that these could be used to educate students, too.


The program comes with a free copy of Portal 2 and the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker, and students and teachers both can use the tools to build puzzles. Teachers are even given a website to collaborate, and the level builder is supposed to help kids learn problem solving, math, engineering and science.


Talk about the beautiful marriage of learning and gaming. Kudos, Valve!