Often, folks don't really get what IT can do for us. It is electrifying, revolutionary, and means you're doing your bit in the gigantic wave of technology that will affect us all over the next generation. Technological changes and dialogue via the web is going to spectacularly alter our lives over the coming years; remarkably so.

Always remember that the average salary in the IT sector over Britain as a whole is much more than in the rest of the economy, therefore you will probably gain a lot more as a trained IT professional, than you could reasonably hope to achieve elsewhere. Excitingly, there's no end in sight for IT jobs expansion throughout this country. The industry continues to develop enormously, and with the skills shortage of over 26 percent that we're experiencing, it's highly unlikely that this will change significantly for decades to come.

'In-Centre' days are often sold as a strong aspect by many trainers. When you chat with the majority of computer industry trainees who have used them, you'll likely realise that they've now become a major negative due to many reasons:

- Constant visits to the centre - quite a distance away usually.

- For those of us that work, then weekday classes cause problems at work. More than likely you will be facing at least 2, if not 3 days in a row.

- At only 4 weeks off each year, spending half on study days leaves us with very few opportunities for days off.

- Classes sometimes get far too big.

- Some students want to work as quickly as possible, but some like to take it easier and want to set their own pace that fits. This generates tension and difficulty in most cases.

- Quite a lot of trainees speak about the high (and unexpected) costs associated with travelling back and forth to the venue and paying for food and accommodation gets very expensive.

- Most attendees want their training to remain private thus avoiding all questions in their work.

- It's really not that uncommon for people to not ask questions they want answered - purely because they're in front of other people.

- For those of us who need to occasionally work or live away part of the time, think of the now-increased trouble of travelling to the requisite workshops, as time is now more scarce than ever.

An altogether more elegant solution is based on viewing a videoed workshop - giving you the opportunity of instructor-led coaching whenever you wish. Training can take place wherever it suits you. If your PC is a laptop, you could catch a bit of sunshine outside while you work. If you have any problems then logon to the 24x7 support facility. It really doesn't matter how many times you have to re-cover a topic, on-screen teachers won't ever lose patience! And remember, because of this, note-taking is a thing of the past. Everything is already there for immediate use. The final result: Less hassle and stress, more money in the bank, and no wasted travelling time.

All those at the beginning of their computer literacy learning curve should choose the ECDL. This will teach you how to operate the basic elements of 'Windows' (the system that runs most personal PCs.) What's more , it covers getting on the web, so that you can use email to send and receive correspondence, and search the world wide web. You'll also learn the fundamentals of word processing plus a little about what spreadsheets & databases are useful for.

Moving things on a stage further, you may possibly want more professional instruction to improve your job prospects. A wide knowledge of Microsoft Office is most likely the skill-set most require at this point. The two well recognised accreditation programmes are 'MOS' ('Microsoft Office Specialist') & 'MCAS' (Microsoft 'Certified Application Specialist'). 'MOS' has been about for several years and emphasises 'Office' 2003 and 'XP', which continues to be well utilised in business. 'MCAS' works with 'Office' 2007 & Vista, so inevitably offers better life expectancy. You'll find different examinations for both which go into 'Excel' for spreadsheets, 'Access' for 'databases', 'Powerpoint' for 'presentations' & 'Word' for word-processing. The benefit of having these accreditations is they prove your in depth ability level for using these packages.

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