The chapters in this book provide an excellent story of the growth of e-learning and eService-learning over the past many years. Strait takes us from the first chapter examining current issues and considerations for eService-Learning, to a second chapter that documents the growth and maturation of a program at Missouri State University, to chapters that introduce “critical” e-service learning with a social justice orientation (Gordon and Jackson-Brown), and chapters that address international experiences (Ong, Tan, et al., and Dietrich and Ekici) that involve eService-learning in Singapore and long-distance relationships between the U.S. and Afghanistan, to illustrate the multiplicity and diversity of current models of service and learning that occur through electronic means. The importance of the book and its chapters is that change happens. What was occurring in the early 21st century was altered by situations, such as the global pandemic of COVID-19, to increase the reliance on e-educational systems and promote the increased use of electronic educational programs that covered almost all areas of educational systems. While early mobile phones existed in the 1970s (Teixeira, T. 2010), they evolved, and more sophisticated versions were produced throughout the 20th century. By the end of the century, phones that could easily transmit emails were developed, and then came camera phones and then smart phones by 2003. And phone communication has continued to change, existing today as a total communication device used by people all over the world. Similarly, video, and visual systems have evolved and continue to change. Zoom was developed in 2011 and has continued to evolve and expand services all over the world. People are now able to visually and orally communicate with others on every continent 24 hours a day, and the complexity and utility of communication has similarly expanded. Now phones can instantaneously translate between languages and people in all parts of the world can share experiences and visual products without barriers of language, country, or time. Indeed, the electronic world is an amazing entity and continues to evolve each year. So, what are the implications of all these changes for education and service? Simply put, they are and will continue to evolve to more complex and more useful forms for all communication and interaction. And this current volume gives us much insight into the important areas of change in both e-learning and eService-learning. All the chapters add great insight and information about important issues in the field and highlight some of the critical concepts embedded in its development.

The chapters in this book provide an excellent story of the growth of e-learning and eService-learning over the past many years. Strait takes us from the first chapter examining current issues and considerations for eService-Learning, to a second chapter that documents the growth and maturation of a program at Missouri State University, to chapters that introduce "critical" e-Service-learning with a social justice orientation (Gordon and Jackson-Brown), and chapters that address international experiences (Ong, Tan, et al., and Dietrich and Ekici) that involve eService-learning in Singapore and long-distance relationships between the U.S. and Afghanistan, to illustrate the multiplicity and diversity of current models of service and learning that occur through electronic means. The importance of the book and its chapters is that change happens. What was occurring in the early 21st century was altered by situations, such as the global pandemic of COVID-19, to increase the reliance on e-educational systems and promote the increased use of electronic educational programs that covered almost all areas of educational systems. While early mobile phones existed in the 1970s (Teixeira, T. 2010), they evolved, and more sophisticated versions were produced throughout the 20th century. By the end of the century, phones that could easily transmit emails were developed, and then came camera phones and then smart phones by 2003. And phone communication has continued to change, existing today as a total communication device used by people all over the world. Similarly, video, and visual systems have evolved and continue to change. Zoom was developed in 2011 and has continued to evolve and expand services all over the world. People are now able to visually and orally communicate with others on every continent 24 hours a day, and the complexity and utility of communication has similarly expanded. Now phones can instantaneously translate between languages and people in all parts of the world can share experiences and visual products without barriers of language, country, or time. Indeed, the electronic world is an amazing entity and continues to evolve each year. So, what are the implications of all these changes for education and service? Simply put, they are and will continue to evolve to more complex and more useful forms for all communication and interaction. And this current volume gives us much insight into the important areas of change in both e-learning and eService-learning. All the chapters add great insight and information about important issues in the field and highlight some of the critical concepts embedded in its development.

Transforming Teacher Education through Service-Learning provides a fresh look at educational reform through the lens of teacher preparation. It poses the question “Why service-learning now?” as it discusses the meaningful ways service-learning pedagogy can transform the approaches used to prepare teachers to educate tomorrow’s children. The pedagogy of service-learning has significant implications for teacher education. Its transformative aspects have far reaching potential to address teacher candidate dispositions and provide deeper understanding of diversity. Knowledge of the pedagogy and how to implement it in candidates’ future classrooms could alter education to a more powerful experience of democracy in action and enhance the civic mission of schools. The current and ongoing research found within this volume is meant to continue support of the notion of educational reform. Because the vision we hold becomes the reality we experience, it is imperative to consider the question—Why service-learning now?—as we adjust teacher preparation programs to promote engaging opportunities for today’s youth.

This book serves as an introduction to using online teaching technologies and hybrid forms of teaching for experiential learning and civic engagement. Service-learning has kept pace neither with the rapid growth in e-learning in all its forms nor with the reality that an increasing number of students are learning online without exposure to the benefits of this powerful pedagogy.Eservice-learning (electronic service-learning) combines service-learning and on-line learning and enables the delivery of the instruction and/or the service to occur partially or fully online. Eservice-learning allows students anywhere, regardless of geography, physical constraints, work schedule, or other access limitations, to experience service-learning. It reciprocally also equips online learning with a powerful tool for engaging students.In eservice-learning, the core components of service, learning, and reflection may take a different form due to the online medium—for example, reflection often occurs through discussion board interactions, journals, wikis, or blogs in an eservice-learning course. Moreover, the service, though still community-based, creates a world of opportunities to connect students with communities across the globe—as well as at their very own doorstep.This book introduces the reader to the four emerging types of eservice-learning, from Extreme EService-Learning (XE-SL) classes where 100% of the instruction and 100% of the service occur online, to three distinct forms of hybrid where either the service or the instruction are delivered wholly on-line – with students, for instance, providing online products for far-away community partners – or in which both are delivered on-site and online. It considers the instructional potential of common mobile technologies – phones, tablets and mobile reading devices. The authors also address potential limitations, such as technology challenges, difficulties sustaining three-way communication among the instructor, community partner, and students, and added workload.The book includes research studies on effectiveness as well as examples of practice such drafting grants for a community partner, an informational technology class building online communities for an autism group, and an online education class providing virtual mentoring to at-risk students in New Orleans from across the country.

The Advances in Service-Learning Research book series was established to initiate the publication of a set of comprehensive research volumes that would present and discuss a wide range of issues in this broad field called service-learning. Service-learning is a multifaceted pedagogy that crosses all levels of schooling, has potential relevance to all academic and professional disciplines, is connected to a range of dynamic social issues, and operates within a broad range of community contexts. In terms of research, there is much terrain to cover before a full understanding of service-learning can be achieved. This volume, the first in the annual book series, explores various themes, issues, and answers that bring us one step closer to understanding the essence of service-learning. The chapters of this volume focus on a broad range of topics that address a variety of research issues on service-learning in K-12 education, teacher education, and higher education. Through a wide-scoped research lens, the volume explores definitional foundations of service-learning, theoretical issues regarding service-learning, the impacts of service-learning, and methodological approaches to studying service-learning. Collectively, the chapters of the book provide varying and, at times, opposing perspectives on some of the critical issues regarding service-learning research and practice.

A volume in Advances in Service-Learning Research Series Editor Virginia M. Jagla, National Louis University; Service-learning is a powerful method of teaching and learning that has been used effectively for more than two decades. Its efficacy has been researched in a variety of ways and this volume continues to expand that research base. In particular, in this volume, Service-Learning Pedagogy: How Does It Measure Up?, we explore three broad areas of service-learning research and practice that reflect broader discussions of the role of pedagogy in today's educational reform efforts: Teacher Education, Crossing Boundaries: Deepening Relationships in Service-Learning and New Paradigms/ Conceptual Frameworks. Many have called for more rigorous methods when researching service-learning pedagogy. That has been the major impetus for this volume. We seek to generate knowledge regarding service-learning pedagogy, while developing theories about it. We surface some elusive affective characteristics of the pedagogy, which we know has the power to produce transformational learning. To this end, the authors who have contributed to this volume effectively add to the growing body of knowledge in the field and help us get closer to understanding the extent to which service-learning does and does not measure up.

This volume is the seventh in the Advances in Service-Learning Research series, and presents a collection of papers selected from those presented at the Sixth International Service-learning Research, hosted by Portland State University in Portland, Oregon in October 2006. The theme of the conference, which is also the title of this volume, was “From Passion to Objectivity: International and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Service-Learning Research.” This theme was selected to showcase several important topics in contemporary service learning and community engagement research. Of key importance is the way in which the chapters selected for this volume reflect the evolution and maturation of research in the field of service-learning—moving from descriptive narratives of the passion for addressing social problems and inequities that was evident in much of the early research (and is still reflected today) to increasingly sophisticated research that draws on multiple methodologies, presents solid evidence, and offers the basis for replication and further exploration through future research.