The first connection with Finland was through Dr. Ria Heila-Ylikallio of the Faculty of Education in the Åbo Akademi in Vasa. She attended a short Storyline course in Jordanhill Campus around 1995 and became very interested on how the strategy could be adapted for teaching purposes in Finland. To develop this she arranged for a series of courses to be run in Vasa in 1996. These were organised by Ann-Maj Björkell-Holm of the Department of Continuing Education. In the late 1990s courses extended into Turku and Helsinki and it is hoped that these courses will continue.
Guðmundur Kristmundsson and Björg Eiriksdóttir from Iceland have also presented Storyline course series for the Åbo Akademi.
Ria used Storyline as a part of her study for her doctorate which she gained in 1998 and she and Professor Anna-Lena Østern have written two books, each on a Storyline topic for use by Swedish speaking Finnish teachers. Because of their work, many students have made study tours to Scotland and used Storyline as a focus for their final dissertations. Storyline is now regularly presented to students and teachers by the tutors already mentioned and also by Ann-Maj Björkell-Holm.