In many countries there are online schools for at least expat children. In some countries online education is allowed also for local children. In Finland our school has long been the only K9 online school, so we have hardly any domestic colleagues. This is typical for many other countries as well – K9 online schools are often the only ones of their kind in their home countries.

In 2015-2016 we did our first Erasmus+ visits to three similar schools in other European countries: Norway, Netherlands, and Lithuania. It was eye opening! There were as many ways of doing the same job as there were schools, but we spoke the same “language”: we shared the same challenges, and we understood each other’s problems, joys, and griefs.

Having worked alone for a long time, meeting colleagues was like resting, in the company of likeminded professionals.

And yes, I had a dream. Since the first Erasmus+ visit to Norway I have been dreaming of closer collaboration with similar schools around the world. I started a Facebook group for online schools teaching expat children. In the beginning it was quite active, but it faded during the years. In the long run a loose community on social media is not sustainable.

Our second Erasmus+ tour was postponed because of the corona pandemic, but in 2022 it finally took us to visit similar schools in Sweden and Belgium. In Belgium we had the privilege to meet our colleagues from d-teach, Belgium’s first online school and also a center of excellence on online learning.

My Belgian colleague Lieselot Declercq is a young, enthusiastic entrepreneur with a great cooperative spirit. Together with her colleague and d-teach online school co-founder Koen Verlaeckt she took the idea of a global community to a next level. She took part in the Accelerator Program of the European Digital Education Hub, an initiative of the European Commission and part of the Digital Education Action Plan. This sparked the idea and the initiative to establish ICONS (International Community of Online Schools; https://icons.education), which wants to grow into global voice of online schools.

ICONS is my dream come true. It is the community giving us the possibility to connect and collaborate with colleagues all over the world, dealing with similar issues, exchange information and good practices and gain new insights. Launched in March 2023, ICONS is still a young community, looking for new members, online schools spread across the world. Schools that are often the only – and lonely – ones in their home country.

In the presentation I’m happy to share with you how we work in ICONS to build the global community of online schools.