Drawing on experiences from a large-scale Nordic co-design research project, this paper explores the development of cross-border blended education with the aim to strengthen students’ Nordic identity and knowledge of neighboring Nordic languages illuminating the flow of didactical designs students were offered to engage in, i.e. the knowledge content, activities, spaces and resources. The iterative, three-year educational development of designing for learning proved to provide space for shared and collaborative knowledge development involving students in rich, authentic, and goal-oriented inter-Nordic comprehension practices on multiple levels, addressing content-related as well as contextual frames in teaching situations. Schematic models of the didactical designs revealed initial dis-alignment and diverse appropriation of modes and media in parallel cooperative activities combined with collaborative cross-border face-to-face talk promoting students to take perspective, compare, and contrast. Addressing the socio-material frames of teaching gave an opportunity to discover new learning goals and design activities in new adequate arrangements of the physical classroom and the digital space. The analysis demonstrates that students developed linguistic, cultural, critical, and digital competences of varied educational value based on the teams’ divergent approaches to knowledge processes to incorporate digital technologies in teaching practice. The study highlights the critical factors of recognizing digital, multimodal meaning-making and informal skills as means to promote learning and schools’ remaining insufficient provision of digital infrastructure for learning activities in blended learning environments. © 2022 The Author(s).