{"id":10,"date":"2010-01-28T15:55:41","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T15:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edtechandtesol.info\/phd\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2017-01-11T13:30:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T13:30:15","slug":"de-stefani-magdalena","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?page_id=10","title":{"rendered":"De Stefani, Magdalena (PhD alumnus)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Magdalena<\/a>

Magdalena De Stefani<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Magdalena De Stefani<\/strong> (an\u00a0MEd ELT and PhD alumnus)<\/p>\n

My name is Magdalena De Stefani and I’m a former MEd ELT and PhD candidate. I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1977, and obtained my Diploma in TEFL in\u00a0my home country in 1997. My first contact with Manchester was when I started my (Distance) MEd in ELT in 2000, which I finished in 2005.\u00a0Back in my MEd times my main interest was the acquisition and L1-L2 transfer of reading skills, and that was the focus of my mixed-methods dissertation.<\/p>\n

Then came the PhD times, which I remember fondly. I started my PhD in 2007 and finished by the end of 2012. When I started thinking of applying for a PhD I was working (as a teacher educator) with teachers in provincial and rural areas of my country. As I learned about how different their teaching realities were from my own as a ‘capital-city’ teacher, I became interested in doing research on ways of implementing a Continuous Professional Development programme that would facilitate inter-provincial contact and make empowerment available to these teachers. Based on the work of Kumaravadivelu (2006) I set up an action research project to explore, together with participating teachers, the possibilities for empowerment a blended CPD programme could offer. This exploration of how technology could contribute to teacher empowerment became the topic of my PhD research.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of my doctoral studies (mostly during the initial stages of research training), I fell in love with action research and have been a keen action researcher ever since. It was also during my doctorate that I discovered\u00a0Cooperative Development (Edge 2002), which I not only\u00a0used as a technique to enhance reflexivity in my research, but which I have also been applying ever since in\u00a0my practice as teacher educator and manager.<\/p>\n

Another very significant link with the University was the Computer-Mediated Intercultural Communication project I was involved in from 2006 to 2010\/2011, in collaboration with Richard Fay, Diane Slaouti and\u00a0Susan Brown, among other colleagues from Universities around the world. This was\u00a0a wonderful opportunity for me to learn more about and take part in the research being conducted at the University.<\/p>\n

I have also worked\u00a0in close collaboration with two other PhD alumni and friends,\u00a0Paul Breen and Achilleas Kostoulas, based in London and Ioannina respectively. This is just one example of the many socio-academic links that have made me feel part of this family.<\/p>\n

In terms of how my career evolved after completing my PhD, I can happily say it has opened many doors. I am currently Head of Preschool and Primary at a bilingual school in Uruguay (www.ivythomas.edu.uy), as well as a Lecturer in Research Methods at Universidad ORT Uruguay (www.ort.edu.uy). I am also a mentor for the British Council’s Action Research Award Scheme in Latin America, which means I am in charge of supervising two action research projects in Uruguay which have, together with other four projects from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, won a 4000 GBP award to be spent on their research. Finally, since 2013 I have also been a\u00a0member of the Uruguayan national network of investigators (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, www.anii.org.uy).<\/p>\n

Below are some of the conference presentations and journal articles\u00a0I have been involved in so far:<\/p>\n