When I first started teaching German at Bloomington North 6 year ago (wow - time flies!), all of my assignments for my students were paper worksheets that I made myself. We weren't 1 to 1 yet with hp laptops, and our textbook was awful and the worksheets that came with it even worse.
Homework assignments are 25% of students' grades, and I graded the worksheets on completion. At the beginning of class, I walked around the room and spot-checked the assignment while students were doing their bell work. If they had attempted the entire assignment, they got 10 of 10. Otherwise it was a 0 out of 10.
After bell work, we went over the assignment in class, and students corrected their own work. Students who hadn't finished the assignment filled it in as we went over it and received 5 out of 10 when they had done so.
It was a pretty good system - students got a review of what we did 2 days ago (Ach, block scheduling, I am not a fan of you for language learning!), students who hadn't done the work were motivated to at least fill in the worksheet as we went over it, and I got a quick snapshot of students' understanding. Sometimes, though, going over the homework was a bit boring for students who had mastered it easily. And it takes time in class to go over the assignment.
Fast forward to today: Our district is starting its 4th year with 1 to 1 laptops for the high schools, we've adopted a better (though not perfect) textbook, and I have several more years of experience under my belt.
I'm slowly changing over most of my worksheets to online assignments, which are automatically graded by our LMS, Canvas. (Our new textbook has online assignments too, but our book is designed to be used in college or high school, so the level of the assignments is quite high. I've tried them in German 1 and 2 but find that students get frustrated pretty quickly. I do use them in German 4, with students who are more mature and headed for college the following year.)
Students get immediate feedback and can re-do the assignment as many times as they need to. I set Canvas to keep their highest score. They can even re-do assignments later when reviewing for a test or the final. I choose not to have Canvas give students the correct answers because I want them to think about and figure out their own mistakes. They don't really like this, but I think it is good for them.
Like any teaching strategy, there are pluses and minuses. One of my students lamented, "I miss paper!" Sometimes I do too. And for assignments that are really challenging or more open-ended and not easily graded by a computer, I do still use paper worksheets.
I like that students get immediate feedback and that we don't need to spend as much class time going over assignments. But I don't get that quick sense of how they are doing as automatically - I have to take the time to click on the assignment in Canvas and look over the analysis. But when I do, I can get an item by item analysis of what they are understanding and what is still unclear. Data, lots of data!
On the downside, assignments are more anonymous. When I walk around and check worksheets, I can have a brief conversation with a student whose work isn't done. Is it a one-time thing due to a late sporting event or play rehearsal the night before or is it becoming a pattern? I lose this with the online assignments.
Canvas is a computer, so it counts students' answers wrong if they misspell a word or forget punctuation. My students really don't like this, but I like that it forces them to pay attention to details.
All in all, I think it's working well so far for my students and me.
I make my Canvas assignments publicly available, so if your school uses Canvas, you should be able to see them in Commons.
On an unrelated but fun note - my German teaching colleague at South high school celebrated her 50th birthday this month. I made her a crochet jellyfish in German flag colors as a gift:
Here she is, showing it off in front of her classrooom:
