Too Much of a Good Thing?

I've been putting a lot of effort into "flipping" my classroom. More and more of my lessons are being recorded on video. In fact, it's become my default teaching method. When preparing a new lesson or activity I automatically begin thinking about how I'm going to record my instructions in a video format.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. I get to spend more time one-on-one with students. For example, in my recent lessons on Osmosis I got to spend lots of time working with individual students who didn't understand the topic despite using three different videos from other teachers to explain it.
2. I have more time to check up on student understanding. Instead of standing at the front of the room talking I am able to assess students by walking around the room, looking over their shoulders, and taking up the short quizzes I give them.
3. The videos are actually shorter than if I gave the lecture live since there are no disruptions and I can work to make them as efficient as possible.
4. I don't forget things. In a regular lesson with me at the front, I might forget to include something while teaching live. If I'm thorough with my videos I can avoid this.
5. When I'm absent, or students are absent the class can keep moving and the absent students can catch up.
6. Students that need more time can have it, since they aren't bound by the speed of the class.
7. It doesn't take me any longer to plan a lesson. Instead of just thinking about my lesson and writing notes, I record my planning session and I'm done.
8. If I get the chance to teach the same things again, I have everything ready to go.

All this is well and good, but I do wonder if I'm using it too often. Here are some negatives I'm experiencing.

1. Using the same teaching style all the time is not a good thing.
2. It is much harder to organize some of the fun and interesting whole class lessons because every student is in a different place. For example, just yesterday I had a student say that it would have been much more interesting to read a story out loud with students taking different parts instead of reading it themselves. They were right!
3. Too much time staring at a screen.
4. If your network goes down you are in big trouble.
5. Some students complete all the work ahead of time and have nothing to do. (Clearly they need a challenge and now I need to work on providing that. So maybe this isn't all negative.)

Using video to teach is very powerful and has enormous advantages. But it is always important to be critical and look for best practices.