  Pion electro- and photoproduction off the nucleon close to threshold is
studied in covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory at O($p^3$) in the
extended-on-mass-shell scheme, with the explicit inclusion of the
$\Delta(1232)$ resonance. The relevant low energy constants are fixed by
fitting the available experimental data with the theoretical model. The
inclusion of the $\Delta$ resonance as an explicit degree of freedom
substantially improves the agreement with data and the convergence of the
model.
