This paper is about examining life in classrooms. Authentic recording and interpretation of the complexities of classroom life have long been both fascinating and challenging for researchers. Typically, such research has been expensive, time-consuming and susceptible to claims that its intrusiveness pollutes the authenticity of the very context that it seeks to understand. Furthermore, it has usually been restricted to the visual focus selected for recording by the "two eyes" of the researcher, the editor or the camera operator. However, developments in the "one eye" of digital video technology and associated research software offer opportunities to look into classrooms in ways that are more cost and time-efficient, less intrusive, and more inclusive and representative of the totality of classroom life. In this paper we report that, regardless of the limitations and challenges, we are convinced of the potential for research to be enriched through the incorporation of new technologies. Our experience in conducting research into life in six primary school classrooms supports the value of new technologies as methodological tools which are more manageable in practical terms, which increase and improve information-gathering, and which enhance the construction of datasets based upon the dynamism and complexities of classroom life. We recommend their use to explore, better understand and appreciate classroom life in fuller, richer ways. (Contains 3 endnotes.)