21 Jun

Joystiq reports that during a keynote presentation at the New York “Games for Change” festival, Valve’s Leslie Redd announced that a limited version of Portal 2 will be made available to educators to, as Valve puts it, help them “teach with Portals.” More details are included after the jump.

The program is currently in Beta and works via a limited version of Steam that grants users access to the game itself, the level-editor, and the recently-implemented Workshop. Users will not be able to share their levels directly, though educators will be given an Administrator account that is able to facilitate the sharing process. According to Redd, the program will be open to all teachers, organizations, after-school program, and even home-schooling parents, free of charge..

The program is being set up by Valve independently, and the company is not receiving any grants or subsidies for making the program available.

It is not know when the program will launch in full, though educators can currently sign up for inclusion in the Beta program that is being rolled out this summer.