About the Families Learning Together Badges
This is the badge site for Families Learning Together, a community program in San Marcos, Texas that has been bringing families together since 2017 for expressive-STEM playshops: coding, robotics, art, textiles, circuits, storytelling, and more.
Everyone Teaches
Every person brings knowledge worth sharing
Everyone Learns
Kids, parents, and grandparents explore together
Everyone Makes
Technology meets your family's own stories
Those are FLT's three principles, and badges are how we celebrate them. When your family makes something, learns something, or teaches someone else, a badge marks the moment.
How the badges are organized
- Badges live in domains: practice areas like Structures, Circuits, Coding, and Community Science. There's no required starting point. Begin wherever your family's curiosity leads, and badges build on each other: earning one can unlock the next.
- Badges certify what you demonstrate. Most badges ask for evidence of your work (photos, links, reflections on what you made and learned), and a trained grader reviews it against the badge's requirements. Some badges are awarded directly by a facilitator who sees your growth happen.
Browse them all in the badge catalog.
What is a "verifiable credential"?
Every earned badge comes with a digital credential in the Open Badges 3.0 standard: a portable, cryptographically signed file that proves the badge is real, who earned it, and who issued it. Think of it as a tamper-evident seal: schools, employers, and badge wallets can check it independently, without asking us.
Each earned badge has a credential page that shows the details in plain language, with the raw signed file one click away for verification tools.
Who issues the badges?
Badges are issued by Texas State University – Community Partnerships (opens in new tab). Families Learning Together is a community program supported by Texas State University: university staff design the badge pathway, train the graders, and stand behind each credential the program issues.
Privacy, in one paragraph
Learner uploads are private by default: visible only to the learner and program staff, until the learner chooses to make an item public. Learners decide what they share beyond what a badge requires. Public dashboard links show a display name and earned badges, never an email address or birth date. Learners under 18 need a parent or guardian's consent before their account activates.
Come make something with us
Playshops happen around San Marcos with community partners like Centro Cultural Hispano and the San Marcos Public Library, and they're where badges are earned (you'll get your signup code there, too). Program information, schedules, and contact details live on the main site: fltsmtx.org. Reach out any time about badges, your account, or joining in.