23 Discussion Prompts Hub
Collaborative Learning Activities for Study Groups
23.1 Discussion Prompts Hub
Research shows that explaining concepts to peers increases retention by 70%. Use these prompts for study groups, classroom discussions, or self-reflection.
23.2 How to Use These Prompts
- Solo Study: Use prompts as self-reflection questions
- Study Groups: Take turns defending different positions
- Classroom: Facilitate structured debates
- Online: Post responses to discussion forums
23.3 Protocol Selection Debates
23.3.1 MQTT vs CoAP
Scenario: You’re designing a smart agriculture system with 500 soil moisture sensors across a 100-hectare farm. Sensors send readings every 15 minutes. Cellular connectivity is available but expensive.
Debate: Should you use MQTT or CoAP?
Team A (MQTT): Argue for persistent connections, QoS guarantees Team B (CoAP): Argue for lower overhead, UDP efficiency
Consider: - Power consumption per message - Handling intermittent connectivity - Cost per MB of cellular data - Message delivery guarantees needed
23.3.2 LoRaWAN vs Cellular IoT
Scenario: A city wants to deploy 10,000 smart parking sensors. Each sensor reports occupancy changes (average 20 messages/day, 10 bytes each).
Debate: LoRaWAN or NB-IoT?
Key Questions: 1. What’s the 5-year total cost of ownership? 2. How does coverage differ in urban canyons? 3. What happens when technology standards evolve? 4. Who controls the infrastructure?
23.3.3 Wi-Fi vs BLE for Indoor Positioning
Scenario: A hospital needs to track 200 medical equipment items in a 50,000 sq ft facility with 1-meter accuracy.
Debate: Wi-Fi RSSI fingerprinting vs BLE beacons?
Defend Your Position: - Infrastructure requirements - Battery life for asset tags - Accuracy achievable - Maintenance burden
23.4 Architecture Trade-offs
23.4.1 Edge vs Cloud Processing
Scenario: A manufacturing plant monitors 1,000 machines with vibration sensors (1kHz sampling). Goal: Predict failures before they happen.
Question: Where should the ML inference run?
Position A: Edge processing - Lower latency for real-time alerts - Bandwidth savings - Works during network outages
Position B: Cloud processing - More powerful models - Centralized model updates - Cross-plant pattern detection
Your Task: Each person picks a position and must defend it for 3 minutes. Then switch sides.
23.4.2 Monolithic vs Microservices for IoT
Scenario: A startup is building a fleet management platform expected to scale from 100 to 100,000 vehicles over 3 years.
Debate: Start with monolith or microservices?
Consider: - Team size and expertise - Time to market pressure - Operational complexity - Scaling requirements
23.4.3 Time-Series DB vs Traditional SQL
Scenario: An energy company needs to store and query 10 years of smart meter data (15-minute intervals, 1 million meters).
Question: InfluxDB/TimescaleDB or PostgreSQL with proper indexing?
Discussion Points: 1. Query patterns (recent vs historical) 2. Compression requirements 3. Team’s existing expertise 4. Integration with BI tools
23.5 Security Dilemmas
23.5.1 Security vs Usability
Scenario: A smart home company wants to add two-factor authentication for remote access. User research shows 40% of users abandon complex setup flows.
Dilemma: How do you balance security with user adoption?
Options to Debate: 1. Mandatory 2FA with guided setup 2. Optional 2FA with strong defaults 3. Risk-based authentication (2FA only for sensitive actions) 4. Hardware tokens included with purchase
Each Person: Pick an option and convince the group.
23.5.2 Open Source vs Proprietary Firmware
Scenario: You’re choosing firmware for a new IoT product line. Budget allows either: - A) Open-source RTOS with community support - B) Commercial RTOS with vendor support contract
Debate the Trade-offs: - Security vulnerability response time - Long-term maintenance costs - Regulatory compliance evidence - Talent availability
23.6 Business & Ethics
23.6.1 Data Monetization Ethics
Scenario: A fitness wearable company has anonymized health data from 10 million users. A pharma company offers $50M for access to study medication adherence patterns.
Question: Should they sell the data?
Positions: 1. Yes, with consent: Users agreed to terms of service 2. Yes, anonymized: No individual harm possible 3. No, trust violation: Users didn’t expect this use 4. Conditional: Only for beneficial research
Facilitator Note: This has no “right” answer - explore the reasoning.
23.6.2 Planned Obsolescence in IoT
Scenario: A smart thermostat company must decide end-of-life policy. Hardware works fine but cloud services cost money to maintain.
Options: 1. End cloud support after 5 years (device becomes “dumb”) 2. Offer paid extended support subscription 3. Open-source the cloud backend for self-hosting 4. Design for 10+ year offline operation from start
Debate: What’s the ethical and business-appropriate approach?
23.7 Design Challenges
23.7.1 Battery vs Functionality
Scenario: You’re designing a cattle health monitor (ear tag). Requirements: - 5-year battery life - GPS location (high power) - Temperature sensing (low power) - Heart rate monitoring (medium power)
Budget: Only one CR2032 battery fits the form factor.
Challenge: Which features do you include/exclude? Justify to your team.
23.7.2 Backward Compatibility
Scenario: Your IoT platform has 50,000 deployed devices using Protocol v1. You’ve designed v2 with major security improvements, but it’s incompatible with v1.
Options: 1. Force upgrade (break v1 devices) 2. Maintain both indefinitely 3. Gateway translation layer 4. Phase out v1 over 2 years
Debate: What’s the responsible path forward?
23.8 Quick Discussion Starters
Use these 5-minute prompts to spark quick discussions:
| Topic | Prompt |
|---|---|
| Protocols | “If you could only use ONE IoT protocol for all projects, which would it be and why?” |
| Security | “What’s the biggest IoT security mistake you’ve seen or read about?” |
| Architecture | “Edge or cloud - which will dominate IoT in 10 years?” |
| Business | “Name an IoT product that failed. What was the root cause?” |
| Ethics | “Should IoT devices be required to work offline indefinitely?” |
| Design | “What’s more important: battery life or features?” |
| Standards | “Are too many IoT standards a problem or a healthy ecosystem?” |
23.9 Facilitator Guide
23.9.1 Running Effective Discussions
- Time-box: Set 3-5 minutes per position
- Devil’s advocate: Assign someone to argue the unpopular view
- No right answers: Focus on reasoning quality, not conclusions
- Summarize: End with key insights from both sides
- Connect: Relate to real-world examples when possible
23.9.2 Assessment Rubric (for instructors)
| Criteria | Excellent | Good | Developing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evidence | Cites specific technical facts | Uses general knowledge | Opinion without support |
| Trade-offs | Acknowledges counterarguments | Mentions limitations | One-sided argument |
| Clarity | Structured, easy to follow | Mostly clear | Disorganized |
| Engagement | Asks questions, builds on others | Participates | Minimal interaction |