Log off Facebook and put down the Sudoku. Your teachers may be digitally watching you – at least if you have a class in Park Hall room 139.

The classroom is the first at the University to be retrofitted with a Canon VC-C50iR, a video surveillance device that can be used by faculty to record lectures and post them online.

“We’ve been trying to do a pilot test with different kinds of podcast technology,” said David Noah, coordinator of emerging technology at the Center for Teaching and Learning. “I think it really offers an interesting, new opportunity for teaching.”

Recorded lectures can be posted online at iTunes U, an Apple program that allows students at participating universities – including the University – to watch more than 100,000 digital lessons anytime at no cost. Other schools using the technology include Stanford University, Yale University and the University of Oxford.

The University began offering the technology to students last fall. As of Wednesday, the colleges and various campus organizations had loaded clips and sound recordings of 94 seminars, guest speakers and podcasts onto the University’s iTunes U Web site.

Some faculty members, however, are hesitant to use the technology because a connection between the professor and the students is lost.

Professor Coburn Freer teaches in room 139, but said he does not plan on using the camera.

“Teaching, for me, is more interactive,” he said. “It’s not that you’re up there facing a lens, you work with the reactions of the students.”

The English department is the first on campus to purchase a video camera for the purpose of recording more than just screen-captured images.

“We haven’t used [the camera] because we haven’t figured out how to use it,” said Doug Anderson, English department head. “I’m not even sure we have all the pieces yet.”

To record a lecture, the camera must be physically connected to a computer in the classroom. From there, the recorded lecture can be e-mailed, saved or downloaded onto iTunes U.

Anderson said he would welcome the possibility of installing more cameras in classrooms. With a camera set up at the professor’s home as well, the technology could allow for a completely digital class, he said.

“I don’t know, it sounds pretty 1984-ish,” said Courtney Mann, a junior from Auburn. “I don’t know how comfortable I would be watching my teacher on a Webcam.”

Other students were left to wonder who was watching them.

“Maybe it’s President Adams,” said Sarah Moosazadeh, a senior from Marietta who has a class in room 139. “It depends on what it’s there for. I don’t mind if I knew why it was there. But if it was there in terms of invading my privacy, then I do care.”

But for David Noah, the technology could be beneficial to students.

“It gives you a chance to look at a lecture later,” he said. “We feel like that would be a plus for students.”

And the cameras may have some secondary effects as well.

“When a camera is there it’s like someone else will be watching this and you think of yourself as an object of evaluation,” said Leonard Martin, program chair of the Social Psychology Program. The presence of a camera can decrease cheating, increase accountability and encourage students to be quiet, Martin said. Even if students know the camera is off, some of the effects will still occur because it reminds students of social standards.

“I think it’s a really good idea,” said Emily Berry, a junior from Macon. “Sometimes students have certain circumstances where they can’t make it to class and it’s a good way to catch up on what you missed.”

Ron Braxley, a digital media specialist in the College of Education, said, “I think [recording lectures] puts the material in the end-user’s hand in a flexible way,” he said. “It allows them to use the information in a way that suits their lifestyle.”