Valve Brings Portal to Schools

[News Portal]

Yesterday at the Games for Change conference, Leslie Redd and Yasser Malaika, speaking on behalf of Valve, announced that they will be providing free copies of Portal 2 to schools as part of their new 'Steam for Schools' initiative. As well as just the game, they are providing access to 'Teach with Portals', a resource which includes a series of lesson plans for teachers to build from using the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker, as well as a forum where the teachers can communicate to each other about their lessons.

Source: teachwithportals.com

Read full article by GON News

[Slipoch]

nothing like blatantly pushing a product onto children.

reminds me of apple's schools incentives (which also feature lovely lock-in contracts and other pitfalls) to push their products onto kids in the name of 'education'

[zakynthos]

nothing like blatantly pushing a product onto children.

reminds me of apple's schools incentives (which also feature lovely lock-in contracts and other pitfalls) to push their products onto kids in the name of 'education'

That's a bit unfair mate. The unreal engine is used at colleges, do you criticize them as well?

[Linxus]

nothing like blatantly pushing a product onto children.

reminds me of apple's schools incentives (which also feature lovely lock-in contracts and other pitfalls) to push their products onto kids in the name of 'education'

Except for the fact that there arent any contracts/costs involved here beyond bandwidth, and teachers agreeing tot he subscriber agreement which allows for inspection of the site etc to ensure that they are actually using it for education.

[kelik]

You could argue that Windows is pushed on students as it's the only operating system available at most schools, has all sorts of licenses attached and in many cases you cannot avoid using it.

As for Portal 2, while I don't see the education value at the moment, if there actually is one then it is good that the option is there for educational use. I'd rather have the possibility to take advantage of games technology than the inability, when it could possibly provide a lot for education.

[elliotENGi]

Apple have proven that you can convince schools they need your useless products and they are then like lambs to the slaughter. It's so good of valve to follow suit.

[mindsnare]

Apple have proven that you can convince schools they need your useless products and they are then like lambs to the slaughter. It's so good of valve to follow suit.

What utter tripe. Let me guess, you've never spent any real time with iOS or Mac OS at all let alone in a school environment. Yet you feel you're qualified to judge what a school does and doesn't need technology wise.

I use to be a sysadmin for a few mixed environment schools, Windows and Mac. Both OSes played a part. I stopped working in schools before the iPad craze arrived but you can't tell me there would be another tablet out there with equivalent Apps designed specifically for education.

[TRB]

This is actually a great way to improve a person's problem solving ability.
The difference is that here kids aren't being forced to learn, they think they're just having fun, which is the best way to teach.

Another 'game' which should be used in schools is the bridge builder game.
early levels are easy but teach the basic principles of self supporting structures.
Later levels become incredibly difficult but a sharp mind will complete the mission.

The more you can move education away from being a boring chore and towards being a fun, enticing, exercise the more people will choose to learn rather then doing the bare minimum.

[a3gis]

it's actually useful beyond just Portal too -assuming Valve opens it up to other educational games. It will make it easier for sysadmins to allow EduSteam rather than having to add firewall rules for buttloads of Flash game sites which may or may not have porn hidden on them. Presumably they could then allow mass accounts with site licensing to help manage these games.

[Lord_PorkSword]

Portal 1 and 2 have taught my son(10yo) to think outside the box sometimes to solve logical puzzles. Chuck in extra things like how gravity and momentum works etc..
My son has also played with the editor which is teaching him other valuable skills like thinking and building in three dimensions! Extra value with giving him more computer and teamwork skills!

Personally, I think this is a good thing for educators and kids alike!(who don't already have access to Portal)

[theBoofhead]

As a teacher, I think this is an awesome idea. This could just be because I adore Portal, but I think it has a lot more educational value than many people will realise.

As an example, the maths part of the new Australian Curriculum has two main parts: "Content" strands and "Proficiency" strands, which includes "Problem Solving" and "Reasoning" - both skills needed for gaming.

We've actually talked about Portal in my physics class, discussing whether portals are possible considering conservation of energy. Actually, we talk about games a lot in physics, but that's one of the rare cases where it was relevant .

[Slipoch]

I wouldn't mind if it was just portal, but it's not just portal it's the steam sales system, if they made it run without advertising I'd be ok with that.

What utter tripe. Let me guess, you've never spent any real time with iOS or Mac OS at all let alone in a school environment. Yet you feel you're qualified to judge what a school does and doesn't need technology wise.

Well I have installed and repaired those systems (macos et al.) for a few years (including in school systems) and they are pretty...interesting, poorly overwritten code (remember the netcode loop when using decent switches?), besides there is nothing on a mac that school children or the educational system cannot get elsewhere at 1/8th the price, photoshop? well it runs better under a 64bit windows os. The point I was thinking about was the limited software on apple and the way they had a contract to come and promote their products direct to the kids (yes it was in the edu. contract some of the schools went with, yes I saw said contract)

I do not like microsoft or any company (eg: commonwealth bank) promoting themselves to children and using schools to do so, the reason I think steam is a bit much is because it has credit card entry points, ad popups, trailers etc., strip those out and it's all good.

As for the unreal engine, that is an engine, not an advertising gimmick or an online marketplace and the value it has in showing how an entire game system works is quite good. (& that's at UNI not school)

As for educational apps, well there's plenty on the android interface as for windows....well there's millions of educational programs on windows.

[InAUGral]

As for educational apps, well there's plenty on the android interface as for windows....well there's millions of educational programs on windows.

A few weeks ago I was curious about open source alternatives and almost everything that lots of people pay for has an open-source alternative and educational games are no different.

[TRB]

There is a pretty big difference between the majority of free games that are **** and games like portal which are awesome.