There are two basic strategies:

- try to trade the swings by buying low and selling high on exchanges

- try to buy in on the ground floor of new altcoins which are launching

For the first strategy, you can start by paper trading on exchanges like bittrex, poloniex, kraken, bitfinex.  Meaning, you keep a spreadsheet where you pretend you have 1 btc or 10 btc, then record your buys and sells.  You can paper trade in order to learn for a couple of months before you start risking real money