Abstract

In a context in which possibilities for video-based research with children are proliferating, this chapter shares insights from experimentation and analysis of research with children employing the different configurations of a GoPro camera; head mounted, chest mounted, on a tripod and ‘roaming’ around the classroom in children’s hands. In addition to describing some of the methodological considerations involved in these different GoPro configurations, we argue for a need to further theorise the visual ontologies that underpin the choices and production involved in video-based research with children. Situating our thinking within the ontological turn, particularly the scholarship of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), we consider empirical examples of GoPro data collected during an after-school computer club. Viewing the action through unexpected angles provided by the GoPro serves to ‘push’ against traditional visual ontologies, as the entwining of hands with flows and materials seem to be foregrounded. In our analysis, we emphasise the unfolding nature of the interactions between children, camera and space. These unfolding, fleeting moments are often-overlooked aspects of classroom interactions and jamming or breaking in the action offer lines of flight that depart from well-established molar lines, repositioning both child and spectator of the video within the action. These re-theorisations of video-based research with children offer an opening up of potential for different understandings of how learning emerges out of the movements and rhythms of bodies, formlessness and chaos.