Portal is Free During Valve Education Push

Portal, Valve’s ultra popular and internet meme-generating first-person puzzle platformer, is available for free on Steam for PC and Mac until September 20th.

Those of you who insist on questioning a good thing may be interested to know that Valve hopes this short promotion will show educators how valuable video games can be in the classroom.

“It’s eye-opening to see how video games can be used in amazing and unexpected ways to help educate our next generation,” Valve said in a statement.  “Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in makes physics, maths, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun which gets us one step closer to our goal—engaged, thoughtful kids.”

“Today, innovative educators are finding ways to incorporate Portal and Portal 2 into their classrooms—helping teach physics and critical-thinking skills.  One of the biggest challenges in teaching science, technology, engineering, and maths is capturing the students’ imaginations long enough for them to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead.”

This news comes on the heels of the White House’s Digital Promise Initiative to improve America’s education system by promoting breakthroughs in education and learning technologies.  That event kicks off today.

Source: Develop

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Contributing Editor Andrew Eisen