UD‘s campus, George Washington University, also begins to acknowledge the obvious.

Facebook, video-chatting and instant messaging may soon be a thing of the past – at least in some GW classrooms.

A growing number of professors are banning or restricting the use of laptop computers in their classrooms in an attempt to get students to pay attention and engage in classroom discussions.

… Sophomore Joe Goldman … said he does not mind that his professor bans laptops in his class.

“I find the use of a computer to be terribly distracting. I already have a BlackBerry, if I had a computer in class I’d literally be staring at a screen all day,” he said.

… “Students pay a lot of money to attend this institution, but I’m sure it’s no one’s intent that people should be throwing that money away,” [one professor said]. “If lectures are being compromised, it’s not in anyone’s best interest to use them.”

… Georgetown Law professor David Cole said 80 percent of his students who were anonymously surveyed reported that they are more engaged in class discussion when they are laptop-free, 70 percent said that they liked the no-laptop policy, and 95 percent admitted that they use their laptops in class for “purposes other than taking notes.”

GW professor Tapan Nayak also said he has banned laptops in his statistics courses.

“In the past, some of my students were using laptops to do other things, checking e-mail, surfing the Internet,” Nayak said. “For my class it is not necessary or that helpful to use a laptop.”

“In general I’d say that laptops are kind of like a double-edged sword in the classroom. We are only using what is given to us, but we all know what people are going to do in the classroom and that’s not pay attention,” said Zach Hanover, a student in SMPA professor Carole Bell’s class. Bell has also banned laptops in her class….

UD thinks that eventually the only professors to encourage laptop use will be those who already stuff their classrooms with PowerPoint and clickers and anything else that will allow them the same screening from their students that the screened students have from them.

If UD‘s right, students who want to stay on Facebook during class should identify professors suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. Or borderline Asperger’s.

… notable Americans beginning to come in.

Number one: Nils Lofgren.

The story about La Kid and the Springsteen Super Bowl chorus will run pretty shortly on WUSA News.

They do some singing. They sound really, really good.

Two minutes to go until the halftime show, and it can’t be denied that Les UD‘s, who have been totally calm and okay with all of this, are now nervous.

“I’m nervous,” Mr UD just said.

“I’m nervous,” UD just said in response.

First funny commercial: Chimps make a guy king and kiss his lips.

“Bad choral precedent,” worries Mr UD after the kitschy Faith Hill thing. “The camera barely noticed them.”

“The Springsteen thing will be totally different,” insists UD. “It’ll be like… like a real concert. Stage. Light show. This is just a bunch of people singing on a field. I think Ania’s chorus will get a little more air time.”

“Hm.”

Woke up with these lines from Philip Larkin’s poem “Broadcast” in my head:

… desperate to pick out
Your hands, tiny in all that air …

He’s listening to a radio broadcast of a concert, and he’s trying to pick out the sounds of his lover’s hands amid the thousands of hands clapping after the performance. UD of course will be watching a television broadcast of the Super Bowl, and trying to pick out the face of her daughter, tiny in all that air …

From a Chicago Trib (I once reviewed books for their competitor, the Chicago Sun Times) column by Rick Telander (I met him a few times through an old boyfriend):

• I HAD A NICE CHAT with E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren (He lived in the house next door to mine in Garrett Park, Maryland) about sports and music and, yes, injuries.

The first thing Lofgren, who was born in Chicago and has played with Springsteen (my kid will sing with Springsteen today at the Super Bowl) for a quarter century, brought up were the audibles Bruce will call on stage.

”We’ve all been playing rock for 40 years, so he knows if he calls out a song like by the Animals (I hooked up with… nah.), from the ’60s, at least seven of the 10 of us will know it. We’ll have a huddle there on the stage, and we’ll figure things out. The first thing you have to get is the key, so he can sing it. The breaks and the chorus and that, he’ll just scream ’em out when they come.”

If that isn’t Roethlisberger with the Steelers on a broken play, you could fool me.

• • INJURIES: I ASKED why sax-man Clarence ”Big Man” Clemons was in such obvious pain, why he could barely walk.

”He just had double knee replacement,” Lofgren said. ”That’s why he’s got a cane. He’ll be better.”

Then he added, ”I just got two new hips three months ago. Why? I did a back flip off a trampoline onstage from 1969 to 1985. The point of a tramp is to get as high as you can, you know. I landed on a hard floor every night. The doctor said I had the hips of an 80-year-old man.”

Now that is awesome. I recalled that Lofgren, a short, wiry man, was once a gymnast. A backflip with an electric guitar. Like being a wedge-buster.

• • THE SUPER BOWL halftime set list?

Nils swore he still didn’t know what Bruce would have the gang play in the mere 12 minutes it was allocated, an eyeblink for a band that recently played 3 hours, 35 minutes without a break and, back in the day, sometimes played for five hours at a time.

Two six-minute songs? A bunch of snippets?

”You know, probably three or four songs,” Lofgren said. ”Each three or four minutes. Don’t know.”

Then he shrugged. He didn’t care.

Playing with Bruce was such a rush, such a joy.

”I’m in the best band in rock ‘n’ roll, and every night what we do is a Super Bowl for the hometown crowd,” the musician said. ”And we’re always victorious.”…

… My being the only white person in the choir… Last night, on our Orlando City Walk, they took a group photo and put me in the middle, ‘For contrast.'”

— La Kid, on her special status in the Springsteen choir.

…Springsteen talked a bit about his version of “The Rising” at “We Are One.”

“It was truly an experience to be on that stage,” he said. “There were people as far as I could see, and the choir behind me sang their hearts out for me. It was a beautiful feeling.”…

This New York Times article (which will appear in the Sunday Arts and Leisure section) features a photo of La Kid and the choir with Springsteen at the inauguration concert. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and see UD’s daughter – the blond with glasses.

Notice how she’s smilingly looking to one side?

“I’m grinning at the President.”

She spoke with UD earlier today. She was on her way to a rehearsal in front of a couple of thousand people.

“I think I’m going to be on the far right of the screen for the actual performance,” she said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding me, since I’m the only white person in the choir… Bruce Springsteen and his wife are very, very friendly. He thinks highly of our group, and chats with us a lot, and leads us really well in the singing… I’m trying to keep up with schoolwork… I’ve been reading Othello. But I’m tired when I get back from Tampa in the evening… “

Patti Scialfa (background) tries to concentrate while La Kid poses with a fellow singer.

La Kid shows any doubters among you exactly where she is.

She’s been in Tampa for a couple of days now, and has had her first rehearsal at the Raymond James Stadium.

She says the weather is warm and sunny.

She’s taken a cab to a mall and had her toes painted.  UD doubts the 163 million people watching her sing with Springsteen will be able to see her toes, but who knows.

Meanwhile, as we await the big game with super anticipation, here’s a blast from the past.  A photo taken by La Kid of Bono as various performers milled around during the inauguration concert.

Hard to imagine a less inaugural setting than this pastel daybreak on the Atlantic Ocean. No crowds, no risers, no gowns. “It’s strange,” said Mr UD to me last night, via cellphone. “I’m on Pennsylvania Avenue, and there are two sorts of people here. Women in very elaborate gowns, and big groups that look like they’re going camping.”

He was downtown late at night because La Kid suddenly called and asked him to bring her fanciest dress to GW. “You won’t be able to get past the lobby. No access for anyone except students beyond that for a couple of days.”

La Kid’s going to an inaugural ball. The George Washington University inaugural ball, where she’ll perform with fellow cast members of The Wild Party. La Kid called UD yesterday afternoon to tell her about it.

“I’m sure it’ll be great, but I’ve got a sinking feeling nothing else in my life will ever measure up to yesterday… I’m currently having trouble believing it happened…. Miss H-C [La Kid’s high school choral director] calls my right arm — the one Bono stroked — The Magic Arm.” She yawned. “I’ve spent most of today in bed. I’m about to order Thai food.” [Pizza? La Kid??]

The kid’s in Rolling Stone.

Thank you, Carolyn, for discovering that.

Also on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I got two copies. Thank you, Alan, for letting me know.