Learning strategy & technology · Calgary, AB
Stephen Peasley
Twenty-five years building for the web, recently turned toward learning design. I work at the junction between the two.
For most of twenty-five years, I built software for the web—for startups, agencies, a Crown-corporation insurer, and products of my own. Learning kept turning up in the work along the way: an early e-learning module at SaskTel, an HR onboarding intranet at Saskatchewan Government Insurance, a distributed-learning CD-ROM for Scholastic, and years of mentoring and onboarding developers.
Teaching web development at a higher education institution was the turn that made it deliberate. It led to an MA in Learning and Technology from Royal Roads (2026), and a move toward learning design as the intentional work rather than something I occasionally happened to work on.
What interests me most is the diagnostic side—working out what a team actually needs to meet their learning objectives, whether technology belongs in the answer, and what the answer should be. The years of building mean I can usually help make it real, not just recommend it.
1. Diagnose
Find what people actually need to do, and where they're getting stuck. Plenty of training problems turn out to be something else. The first job is spotting the difference.
2. Decide
Work out whether technology belongs in the solution, and which technology. Sometimes it’s a course. Sometimes it's a job aid, a process change, or a tool that doesn't exist yet.
3. Build
Design the solution and, when it helps, build it—learning pathways, e-learning, or custom software. Coming from development, I don’t have to hand the build to someone else.
Featured project
A script-rehearsal platform for actors—a real learning problem (how performers memorize lines), a judgment that the existing tools fell short, a design built around how people actually learn, and a product built end to end on SvelteKit, FastAPI, and PostgreSQL.
It includes The Biz, a multi-module e-learning series authored in Articulate Rise 360 and deployed via SCORM, taken through the full arc from needs analysis to evaluation.
Taught web and interactive design across multiple cohorts—designing project-based curriculum, running the room, and managing delivery and assessment through D2L Brightspace. The teaching is what pointed me toward learning design in the first place.
Built a UX capability where there wasn't one—as much internal coaching and standards-setting as design work. Establishing what a capability is for, before producing its artifacts, is the part of the work I keep coming back to.
Adapting to Motivation and Assessment Challenges Presented by AI. My capstone, sponsored by Royal Roads’ Centre for Teaching & Educational Technologies. I interviewed their people and developed recommendations specifically for their practice.
I'll get back to you as soon as I can.