This article discusses the practical and ethical challenges and benefits of using social media and video‐based research methods – also known as Photovoice – to investigate contemporary Communication Design education. The two visual research methods discussed include the social media mobile application Snapchat® and participant‐generated GoPro® video filming. The investigation focused on understanding students’ on‐the‐ground, lived experiences of studio learning within two distinctive higher education case study settings in the United Kingdom and Australia. This study employed Participatory Action Research (PAR) as an inquiry process and incorporated a methodological framework involving a combination of narrative inquiry, visual Participatory Design (PD) and visual ethnography. The findings of this study revealed the impact of specialised studio and classroom‐based Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) on student learning and engagement as the participants expressed differing responses to their own learning and community of practice at each site. The choice of arts‐based educational research methods used for this study allowed the relationships between place, lived experience, and community to be explored. Students, in effect, became investigators of their own practice through engagement in a rigorous set of visual methods, which placed the tools directly into their hands.