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                         July 26, 2002

DOIM offers free computer training to staff and faculty

Story and photo by Kathy Eastwood
Staff Writer 

Computers. Depending on how you look at it, they can either be a Godsend or something to swear at.

There is help available. The Directorate of Informational Management offers classes to the staff and faculty here at the academy in Microsoft Office software. " Word, Access, PowerPoint and Excel are some of the courses offered," according to Joe Landry, a computer specialist and instructor at DOIM.

"Right now we are teaching the Office 2000 series, i.e. Word 2000 and Excel 2000. We offer these applications at three levels, fundamental, intermediate and advanced. In addition, we offer a FrontPage 2000 class at the fundamental and intermediate level."

Three DOIM instructors/computer specialists, Landry, Barbara Beatty and Barry Messer teach the software applications in a one-day course beginning at 8:30 a.m.to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday. "If I’m in a good mood, I’ll give them a break or two," Beatty joked.

"CPAC has asked us to provide a class that incorporates beginning computing with the current operating system at USMA. The class is populated by CPAC and is for those who are interested in gaining a working knowledge of a computer and the Internet or want to compete for other jobs down the road. The class is Basic Windows and is offered to people who generally are not computer literate, but need training in the basics," Messer said.

Last year, DOIM initiated the USMA CISCO Networking Academy, to teach networking and routing essentials and are offered to those who are computer specialists and information management officers.

"The technical classes are self-paced with a requirement of at least 32 classroom participants. We are completely flexible with this training so that it can fit into anyone’s schedule. There are seven levels of training: Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure, and network security to name a few," said Landry.

"As an added bonus for taking these technical classes with us, we furnish some practice certification tests in preparation for the real certification tests, for those who are interested in becoming Microsoft Certified once our requirements for the technical training are completed," added Messer. There is no cost for the technical or application classes.

"We think our classes are geared to help everyone from the novice to the computer savvy. Our goal is to give those who attend our classes a better understanding of whatever software application they are using on their jobs and hopefully give them some shortcuts to make their jobs a lot easier. Through our technical classes, we hope we can produce highly trained individuals that will allow the academy to have a more effective and efficient staff for years to come. All you need is some time to invest and you’ll get the best possible training available," Landry said.

The DOIM Training Center is located at Pershing Center in Spellman Hall on the first floor. For a complete course schedule and description, visit the DOIM web site at: http://doim/csd/dctc or call Barry Messer at (845) 938-8427 or Joe Landry at (845) 938-7412.