Crazy Idea #1 - Video Bell Work

I plan to implement a new system in my classroom in the coming week, namely to begin each class period with a short video (say a max of 10 mins.) during which the students will be required to complete some short assignment, comparable to an extended Do Now, or warm-up exercise. Below I will shares some of the pros that I see for this technique as well as some of the drawbacks that I'm anticipating.

Some Pros:

• Students will come in knowing what to expect procedurally.
• Students will be eager to enter the classroom and settle in in order to watch the video (provided I succeed in finding videos that are both entertaining and education-oriented).
• While students watch the video, their attention will be fixed on the screen, releasing me from the need to supervise as directly as I would otherwise and allowing me the freedom to handle a variety of administrative tasks that are best addressed early in the class period.
• I can connect the short lessons that I will provide to the students to the video I have chosen. (For example, I'm planning to show a clip from an Obama-McCain debate in which they argue their perspectives on US military policy. I would connect this with our current chapter on Athens and Sparta to show how Obama-McCain compare with Athens-Sparta in the sense that they show a cosmopolitan and hawkish perspective on war, respectively).
• I can teach a wider range of communication skills by covering video, film, music, etc. with a metacognitive approach, rather than just relying on written words and my own speech.
• I can provide concrete visual connections to those students who have trouble comprehending the abstraction of our written texts.
• Class may be just a smidge more fun.
• I can say more in my lesson by talking less (I think my students will greatly appreciate this aspect).

Some Cons:

• Students may not be as interested or invested as I anticipate in starting each class with a video.
• Students may be too distracted in watching the video to pay attention to the work I have assigned to guide them.
• Students may interpret the use of video as a license to switch into a passive mode of thinking rather than engaging with the material in a way that they might with a written text.
• Students may be distracted by the video and miss out on the more important aspects of the connections between the video and our learning objectives.

I'm sure there is a lot more downside than I'm anticipating at present. But, I'm eager to get started with this idea so I can see exactly what will work and what won't.

Does anyone else have some ideas about what I could be missing?