Computers have become an indispensable part of
our lives. Your personal computer (PC) can also serve as your window to the world. Apart from providing you with a virtual office
and entertainment centre ( games), the Internet can also give you a wealth of information.
NIIT has designed the Short
Work-programmes in Information Technology (SWIFT) for all those who want learn the basics of computers. There is no pre-requisite
for this course. So even if you don`t know what a RAM is or what a modem does, don`t worry. They start right from the fundamentals.
The duration of this course, the fee for which is a reasonable Rs. 3,000, is 32 to 40 hours. So if you choose to take your
classes every Sunday, you can finish the course in about 11 weeks. Apart from an introduction to computers, the course teaches you
how to work with the popular MS Office 2000 suite.
MS Office 2000 is a powerful programme from Microsoft that incorporates
tools like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
You could think of it as an electronic typewriter - only much more powerful.
A word processing programme like Word allows you to efficiently create, store and retrieve textual documents. The SWIFT course
introduces you to Word and teaches you to use its powerful features ranging from changing font size and style and numbering pages
to incorporating pictures and charts in the documents that you create.
Excel is used for creating and managing spreadsheets.
Simply put, spreadsheets are tables with a number of rows and columns. Usually they are used for financial calculations. There are
inter-relationships and dependencies between the columns and rows of a spreadsheet. So if you change the items in one column you
might have to modify those in other columns too. If you do this manually, it is bound to lead to errors. An electronic spreadsheet
like Excel makes this task faster and easier. SWIFT familiarises you with the basics of spreadsheets and trains you in using them
to manipulate, compare and analyse the items in a spreadsheet.
PowerPoint is a programme that is used to prepare
presentations. The SWIFT course teaches you to create and store slides for presentations using PowerPoint. You can learn how to
include text, charts, tables, graphs and pictures in the slides that you create.
The SWIFT course also introduces you to the
Internet . You can learn how to surf the Net and scour it for information on practically any topic under the sun. You can also use
the Internet for entertainment - send mail, chat with friends, participate in discussions and online auctions or play games.